Letter CCVII. To Roger, King of Sicily
(A.D. 1139.)
Bernard begs Jiini to be kind and liberal towards poor Religious.
Far and wide the renown of your magnificence has spread over the earth. For what lands are there to which the glory of your name has not reached P1 But listen to the advice of me who loves you. Endeavour as much as in you lies to refer this same glory to Him from whom it comes, if you do not wish to destroy it, or to be destroyed by it. This certainly will happen if you open the eye of discretion upon those whom the well-known report of your magnificence calls to you from afar, and if you stretch out your hand not so much to the greedy as to the poor. Truly, Blessed is lie that considercth not the greedy, but the poor and needy (Ps. xli. i). The poor, I repeat, who asks unwillingly, receives modestly, and when he receives glorifies his Father which is in Heaven. Since, then, His own glory will be so faithfully given to God from the mouth of the needy because of your gift, that fount of glory must flow for you with more fruitful stream, for He loves those who love Hun, and glorifies those who glorify Him; just as he wJw sows blessings shall reap blessings (2 Cor. ix. 6). For this reason I beseech you cast your eyes on the bearer of this letter, for most certainly it is not greed that has drawn him to your presence, but necessity that has forced him to come. Necessity, I say, not his own, but of his brethren, viz., the many faithful servants of God by whom he has been sent. Hear patiently what they have to be patient under; hear and suffer with them; for if you suffer with them you shall reign with them. To reign with such is not to be scorned, even by a king. For the kingdom of heaven is theirs who have despised the life of the world. Make to yourself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when you fail out of your earthly kingdom they may receive you into their heavenly kingdom (S. Luke xvi. 9).
Footnotes
-
Bernard now addresses Roger in very different terms from what he had used before; doubtless because, as he was not in the habit of sparing sinners, so he was gentle and kind to the repentant; and when the character had been changed he knew how to change his style, as he says at the end of Letter 224. It seems, then, that Roger had repented himself of having been a foe to the Church, a disturber of peace, a fomenter of schism, a persecutor of Pope Innocent, and a rival of the Emperor. His ferocity had been so great that he spared neither sacred things nor persons, nor his dead enemies (Otto of Frisingen lib. vu. c. 23; Baronius Vol. xii., year 1136). Thence Bernard had spoken of him as, "the Sicilian tyrant'' in Letters 130 and 136; as "an intruder upon the royal crown, the Sicilian usurper," in Letter 139; as "the Duke of Apulia whom Pope Anacletus had drawn to his side by the ridiculous bribe of an usurper's crown," in Letter 127. Peter, Abbot of Cluny, speaks of him in high terms (lib. iv. ep. 37). At all events, when he had submitted to Pope Innocent, although he held him captive, he obtained a confirmation of his royal crown (Baronius, Annals, year 1139), and invited to his realms religious, both Cluniacs and Cistercians. He had, too, a great desire to see Bernard, as appears from the next Letter. VOL. II. 40 ↩
Chapter 207 of 491